Dependence

A friend responded to a recent post on Facebook by saying “Trust is a mental identification with God believing he will provide. Dependence is being in a spot where if God doesn’t do something, because you have no other resource, you will perish—kind of like Moses at the Red Sea.”

Interesting.

When your back is up against the wall – literally against the wall – trust quickly turns to dependence. Because if God doesn’t show up, you’re sunk.

Is there anything you’re doing that requires some move of God? The truth of the matter is that too many of us are more self-sufficient that dependent. In fact, dependence isn’t thought of us as being a good thing. So, we order our world in such a way that we can get by utilizing our own resources, relying on our own strength, and trusting in our own abilities. We become our own god, inhabit cities built of our own ingenuity, and when we do suffer it’s often under the weight of our own excess. And when we go to church and say ‘give us this day our daily bread’ we really know very little about what that means.

We’ve become satisfied trusting a God we don’t have to or expect to depend on. It reminds me of something I read once (I think it’s from Mr. God This is Anna)

“I’d like to buy three dollars’ worth of God, please. Not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine. I want ecstasy, not transformation. I want the warmth of the womb, not a rebirth. I want a pound of the eternal in a paper sack. I’d like to buy about three dollars’ worth of God, please.”

That says it all. Just give me enough God to say I’m trusting Him, not enough to live into life-changing dependence. That God of dependence is bigger than the $3 we want to spend.

People all over the world are depending on a big God to show up. They actually depend on God for their literal daily bread. It’s not a mental exercise. They’re walking in real time with a real God. There’s no tomorrow unless God shows up today.

I’m not even sure where I’m going with this. All I know is that I’m too easily satisfied. I get into my groove. I talk about trust and know so little of dependence. Something’s got to give.